Regional telecoms sitting pretty

A representative from China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in China, keys in the e-mail address of a visitor after his portrait was taken by an oversized mobile phone during ITU Telecom Asia 2002 in Hong Kong, yesterday. PHOTO: REUTERS

While operators in the US and elsewhere endure colossal bankruptcies and the bursting of the dotcom bubble, their Asian counterparts are enjoying steady growth, industry officials said yesterday.

Regional took the chance at a biennial industry show that opened in Hong Kong yesterday to exult over double-digit growth and rapid adoption of advanced technology, such as next-generation cellphones and broadband communications.

"Most of the rest of the world has entered a deep telecoms recession, but here in Asia the market continues to grow and the pace of change remains as fast as ever," said Yoshio Utsumi, secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union, the UN agency sponsoring the show.

"Asia has shown the way out of recession is to invest in next-generation networks and to continue to innovate. Now the region is reaping the rewards," said Utsumi, a former deputy minister of Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and a key driver in the country's industry reforms.

Telecoms WorldCom, Global Crossing and others are struggling through multi-billion-dollar bankruptcies, but Asia's operators appear relatively robust.

Noting seven of the world's 10 most profitable telecoms operators are in Asia -- though he did not name them -- Utsumi announced an ITU report that shows Asian countries leading in several major telecoms areas, including mobile phone use and rates of installation of broadband services.

Asian-Pacific account for 95 percent of worldwide use of so-called third-generation cell phones and 47 percent of all broadband users, the report said. The region's average rate of phone subscription growth has been consistently at more than 10 percent, about twice that for the rest of the world.

Though once lagged far behind the West in telecoms technology, Asia has leapfrogged to the leading edge as teens in Japan snapped up Internet-capable, camera-equipped mobile phones and local governments have adopted policies encouraging use of broadband. Look around any street in China and Taiwan and half the passers-by have mobile phones pressed to an ear.

In China, millions of consumers have gone straight from no-phone to cellphone.

"The development journey that took other nations hundreds of years took us 10 years," China's top regulator, Minister of Information Industry Wu Jichuan, said in a keynote address.

Wu China's telecoms industry as a main driver of the country's rapid economic development. Addressing the problems plaguing the industry outside of Asia, Wu said financial scandals and bankruptcies elsewhere were symptoms of inadequate regulation and faulty policies of the information technology sector.

"The Chinese government always maintained its cool and avoided IT hype," Wu said. ``We have cultivated a solid market rather than one built on bubbles and unrealistic expectations.''

Though youthful markets are far from saturated, telecoms operators in the region face their own woes.

Hong Kong's broadband penetration rate of 12.1 percent is second only to South Korea's 19 percent, but users complain of difficulties with getting the services installed and of technical glitches that mess up fixed-line phone services.